


Lucky F**king Woman | Première Partie

by ItsSweaterWeather



Series: Lucky F**king Couple [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Exhibitionism, F/M, Light Foot Worship, No Plot/Plotless, POV Molly, POV Sherlock, Pregnancy, Protective Sherlock, Romantic Fluff, Sherlolly Freeform, Slow Build, Sweet Sherlock, basically lots of fun with minor kinks, i have this thing for fluids, just a reason to smut up the keyboard, loving couple doing loving couple things, married bliss, pregnancy!lock, role play, seriously no plot or adherence to timeline, sherlolly smut, smut but sweet smut, sorry for all the cottony fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-30 09:10:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12650538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsSweaterWeather/pseuds/ItsSweaterWeather
Summary: “There’s an enamelware pitcher and bowl in the bath,” she continued. “Fill it up and bring it here. I want you to wash and massage my feet.”“Of course,” he nodded.Minutes later, Sherlock emerged with the steaming basin and a flannel. He unbuttoned his jacket and knelt before her. “Such pretty feet, Mrs. Holmes.” He took her ankle in his hand and inspected the high arch with his thumb, pressing into the tightness as he caressed the ball of her foot.Molly’s insides unfurled like a flag on the wind; tight creases and folds giving way to his cool air.





	Lucky F**king Woman | Première Partie

**Author's Note:**

> Charged w/ writing something 'lucky' for Molly, here's another bit of fluffy-nutter silliness that NaNoWriMo hath wrought. The action herein is somewhat inspired by another work; mine's the sidebar you come across after the glorious one-handed read that is _[The Unexpected Benefits of a Long Distance Relationship](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10947717)_ by [OhAine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OhAine/pseuds/OhAine). Go read it. It's _sexy_ with a capital X.
> 
> I have no idea why so much of this series leans Pregnancy!Lock. I'm just going with it.
> 
> As always - unedited, unfiltered, unbeta'd, nonstop typing! Let me know if it's _too_ precious. I'm having delayed feels for these two all of a sudden. Thank you for your kind eyes.

“Mycroft has a private jet at the ready. If you even _dream_ of feeling something sharper than a Braxton-Hicks, you’ll text me immediately.” He didn't look at her while speaking. Instead, Sherlock took quick, silent inventory of the space around them; international travelers, ticket lines, tourists lost to the deceptive, sparkly shops. An out of order CCTV camera. An unguarded access point to track level.

As Molly's pregnancy advanced, his unconscious intake of data had increased a hundredfold. He couldn’t curtail how much information flowed through the sieve or duck from the intense anxiety that rained down on him.

_Protect woman. Child. Mine._

He remembered Miss Patel warning him, both of them, as they sat in her office discussing the blood test results. _“I’m afraid, Mr. Holmes, no matter how erudite and accomplished you _think_ you are, your Neanderthal will rouse and grow just as Molly’s stomach grows. It’s an inevitability. As old as time.”_

 _Molly_ sat. He stood, unable to stomach office confinement as their whole world expanded to an intimidating _three_ , up from their cozy _two_  . In that moment, he wanted to scoop up his bride, toss her over his shoulder (gently, of course), and squirrel away his little family in the making up at that lighthouse on Fair Isle.

 _Read books. Compose music. Make more babies._  Those became the order of the day after hearing the news. He clearly had the aptitude for procreation; he’d gotten Ms. Molly Louise Hooper ‘with child’ less than ten months after saying ‘I love you’. And with minimal prior study. His loss, really. The act proved to be quite splendid once he’d engaged the right lab partner.

His caveman appeared for the first time that day eight months ago in Miss Patel’s office.

Today, the overwhelming static of St. Pancras Station threatened to break his tenuous hold on Sherlock Holmes, high-functioning and still  _reasonable_ sociopath and replace him with the irrational, frightening mad genius, aka Neanderthal. The alter ego grew stronger as Molly's scent ripened and her belly swelled. That black personality always simmered, like tar, several thin layers beneath the light; a specter from his darker drug-induced days. Molly was intimately familiar with his Mr. Hyde. Mycroft enlisted her to captain his chemically addled brain and body to safe harbor shortly after they'd met through his residency at Bart's.

She’d found enough room in her heart to love him, anyway; allowed him to rest his head in her lap while she read, suffered his petulance in her lab, in her flat, on walks through the park with Rosie, at his parent’s home…

Then she'd call him out on it.

And still, Molly welcomed him inside her when he’d lost the ability to express himself with words.

Sherlock walked beside her, hands clasped behind his back, desperate to place his large palm at the base of her spine, guide her through the crowd. The alpha wolf growled deep in his brain, urging him to mark his territory, spray pheromones and proteins in continuous, concentric circles around Molly - his center and his pack.

But then she’d sweep those empathetic hazel searchlights over him and fret, as he'd intended. She’d placate him with reassuring, soft touches and quiet appeasement, as he'd orchestrated.

And she’d cancel her place at the small but prestigious working conference of pathologists, exactly as he’d manipulated, so as not to leave him in London. Lonely. For her and the tiny alien life-force preparing in earnest for life outside that envious bubble.

He couldn’t let himself do that, no matter how desperate he was to keep her in the very foreground of his progressive short-sidedness for which he still hadn't gotten glasses to correct. Vanity.

_"Middle age... Brother Mine."_

Mycroft never had to worry about a woman six weeks from her due date.

 _His woman_. The alpha thundered in his blood, like heroin. A dangerous euphoria. In his more dramatic moments (like right now) he felt Molly's presence as both needle and naloxone. And she had twenty-nine minutes to make her train. Without him.

Sherlock’s muscles fidgeted under his skin; a racehorse stomping in the chute. The sooner he put her on the train, the faster he could lose himself in his own schemes.

“Anything else, Monsieur le Président?” she teased, wheeling a bright floral carryon behind her at a gait slower than her normal ‘darting sparrow’. He tried taking the turtle shell case from her as they exited the taxi but his sparrow remained emphatic. “I’ll just have to do it by myself at Gare St. Lazare, Sherlock.”

He’d asked Mycroft to arrange a chauffeur to meet her at the other end, carry her case, and whisk her to the waiting hire.

Molly shot that idea down. She waddled through the crowd, intent on proving her abilities. He paid no attention to her prowess and worried, instead, over her shifting center of gravity.

He’d never had a problem shortening his stride to match her shallower one. In fact, walking beside Molly Holmes (nee: Hooper), forced him to slow down, to notice the _adjectives_ of life swirling around him, not just the adverbs: the _resplendent_ tangerine-colored heleniums overflowing the plant box in front of their flat; the _magnificent_ coral brush strokes of an August sunset. Molly’s pregnancy had made him hyper-aware of all things orange and its variants: terra cotta, persimmon, salmon, apricot, marmalade, dozens more - in addition to everything else he already made note of.

Why orange? He had seven ideas. Five solid ones. Maybe three satisfactory hypotheses. One that wasn’t inane…

“Molly,” he warned, “if you get a case of the hiccups after breakfast I want to know about it.” He looked down his imperious nose at her. Her lips quivered, skirting the edge of laughter. He continued, undaunted. “If the _baby_ gets a case of hiccups after breakfast, I want to hear about it,” he continued, jaw clenched in an attempt to telegraph ferocious seriousness.

He failed.

“Hmm,” Molly sighed, and continued her duck-walk ahead of him, unaware that he’d stopped to glower at her. “Wish I had 24/7 access to a _doctor_ while I’m away.” 

She turned back, eyes sparkling only for him. “C’mon daddy,” she smiled, motioning for him to link an arm in hers. Sherlock did as she directed, and felt better for feeling her body heat, the ambient warmth of his child, through the fabric of his suit. “You’ll be fine while I’m gone,” she cooed and lead the way to the security checkpoint.

He wouldn’t. 

So he’d arranged for a diversion.

Anthea glanced up from her mobile as Sherlock approached and stepped aside. He slipped into the black Bentley. She did likewise without taking her eyes from her screen. “He says you owe him, Mr Holmes.”

Sherlock smiled to himself, wicked and wide. “Tell him it’s a debt I’m happy to incur." 

 

*****

 

“Quatre vingt huit Rue de la Folie Méricourt, s’il vous plaît.”

“OK, Miss.” 

“Merci.” Molly collapsed into the cracked vinyl and the cab lurched into traffic.

She’d worn herself out proving her point, traipsing through St. Pancras with Sherlock in tow. Mother Grouse, as she and John had labeled him, would cluck that baritone high heaven if he found her out. 

Amazing, really, the great Sherlock Holmes paralyzed by anxiety over her traveling at eight month’s pregnant for work; a pregnancy she held him fifty percent responsible for.

The unbelievability of that made her 100% happy. 

In years of unrequited love for him, Molly nurtured a life at once independent of and tethered to Sherlock. He had full right to love and care for people as he felt most comfortable; years he spent stalking around the abyss but never taking the leap. She had the same rights, too. 

Molly chose to leap and love him - whatever the outcome.

Then Eurus and her games happened… 

The youngest Holmes saw, in under one minute, what Sherlock wrestled to the ground, overpowered his entire life. He'd soft-tossed that drug-addled condescension at John the afternoon in the therapist's home but nearly whipped at Molly's head as he staggered to the ambulance. The agitated _"Just tell me when to cough"_ provided all the emotional context Eurus needed to orchestrate her coffin room confessional. 

Sherlock _loved._ He loved John. And Mary. He loved Mrs. Hudson and even Greg. He loved Mycroft with the kind of begrudging fierceness that only brothers understood. He loved Rosie to the point that his heart would burst from it, rainbows and sunshine making a mess of his insides.

And he loved her. Completely. Quietly because loud declarations upset his fragile nervous system. Those displays of affection poked holes in his carefully-constructed walls; caring always the weaker, unguarded position.

She and Sherlock took the long way round. Probably for the better - even when the path to love felt like it was the worst.

The taxi sped south from the station. Molly watched the canal sparkle in the late afternoon sunshine. She caught an excellent view of the green water from a traffic stop. On the lip of the canal, she spied a teenaged boy dangling coltish legs seductively over the edge. He put her in mind of Sherlock; same slim build, same alabaster skin, same shock of unruly sable hair. A younger girl, long brown hair and impossibly beautiful face, rushed up behind him and slipped into his lap. They kissed that way of passionate young lovers, the ones that think they invented kissing, sex. Love. 

The boy stood up and thrust his hands into the pockets of his black jeans, looking even more like Sherlock as he waited for the girl to wipe dust from her thighs so they could get going to wherever it was they were headed. 

Mummy Holmes had shown her a stack of photos of a teenaged Sherlock the last time they drove down to Sussex. Sixteen-year-old Sherlock stared back at the camera - bored, brooding, and impossibly beautiful. And not one photo of him with a girl - no dances, no bonfire night shenanigans, no couples kitted for a fancy dress party. Molly couldn't believe that not one girl (or boy) hadn't found young Sherlock attractive. Evidence of his gorgeousness even then was unequivocal. 

There was always one... the lone girl, usually with glasses and hiding behind a big book, whose knees went weak at a mere thought of the strange boy who always aced his chemistry exams without cracking the book, then got himself into trouble for proving the instructor (or the chemistry book) wrong in front of the whole class.

Molly knew because her fifteen-year-old bookworm would've been that one; gone weak in the knees for sixteen-year-old Sherlock.

She'd left her chemist back on distant shores, not entirely confident he'd find somethin g to keep him busy. 

He'd slowed his long strides down to a snail's pace the nearer they got to the security line. On its own, his meandering wouldn't have signaled trouble. Then she'd caught sight of his hands, white knuckles clenched behind his back as though fighting to keep them from behaving badly. Molly would've welcomed a light touch between her shoulderblades, something other than him trying to wrestle the wheeled case from her. 

_Neanderthal_ , she smirked.

Beyond that, though, he mumbled to himself, lips moving in silent conversation, eyes scanning the perimeter of St. Pancras for danger. Always scanning now, ahead of her, behind her, above and below her - and baby - for danger.

He didn't want her to stay, she knew. He wanted her to attend what would most likely be her last out of town conference for quite a while. She loved him for that.

And she worried about him, fighting his twin demons of loneliness and anxiety with her in another city.

If he'd asked her to stay, Molly still would've gone. "It's only four days total, love," she'd whispered into his mouth by way of goodbye. "We'll be back before you know it." 

Sherlock knit his brows together and touched her chin, scanning her face, collecting data. He'd mapped her hundreds of times before and, each time, Molly leaned into him, knowing it made him feel better; wondering what minuescule change he'd picked up on.

He'd find something to keep him busy.

Or he’d text the heck out of her.

Molly checked her mobile and pouted, surprised he hadn’t already slipped into his go-to coping mechanism: messaging her with all sorts of questions he knew the answers to. 

_Where is the stash of iodine you brought home? SH_

As if he needed to end each text with his bold consonants...She loved those small Holmesian touches even as he deployed them to annoy.

_Did you hide the good biscuits? SH_

_Didn’t Bart’s have a small piece of chondrodendron tomentosum tucked in the sample archives somewhere? SH_

That last one always demanded her immediate attention: _Sherlock, I don’t know what he’s done & he probably deserves it, but please don’t poison your brother. xM_

The cabbie left Molly and her bag waiting for the small dumb-waiter of a lift just off the building's entry, a modern convenience (circa 1957) that she’d bypassed before. Now, her calves and back thanked the tenant board for lending a touch of the twentieth century to her friend’s address. 

She shifted from one tired foot to the other, the creaking in her stiff bones mirroring the whining gears of the lift. No matter how many times he told her so, and Sherlock told her often, she didn’t always _feel_ beautiful. She felt like a beached whale or a bottom-heavy toddler just learning to walk. Trudging up six flights with baby and bag - in August - would’ve made her sweat from exhaustion, not glow from pregnancy pride. 

How did French women manage it? 

The suffocating, faux wood-paneled box lumbering its way down to collect her was a godsend. Or goddess-send. 

Sherlock insisted that she stay in one of the city's bespoke hotels - the crisp, modern Hotel Vernet or the cheeky Hôtel les Dames du Panthéon - a nod to her status as a female doctor in a world that still found women excelling in the sciences  _uncomfortable_ at best. Molly appreciated his concern, especially in light of the years he kept his consideration hidden under ice and wool, but she loved Bertrand's place and the unfussiness of living like a local even if she'd spend much of her time blocks away in conference. 

He relented. Too easily now that she thought about it. Molly wouldn't doubt it if he'd made several day trips to Paris just to inspect the lift's mechanics himself.

Molly kicked off her sandals before the door to the stuffy flat clicked closed. No matter how many times she’d stayed here, she never shook the giddiness of that first _real_ view of Paris. Dozens of trips later, she ran into the bedroom and stepped up into the alcove. She threw open the tall west-facing casement windows. 

Bertrand’s small flat was located in the perfect spot; a top floor unit of a common enough Hausmannian building in the 11th arrondissement with uncommon views. 

Framed in the window’s opening was the Eiffel Tower, poking through a field of gray slate roofs and terracotta chimney “mushrooms”. Hundreds of lights would put on a show for her every hour after sunset. 

To the left of the great steel icon, the unmistakable blue tubes, red ducts, and white-capped vents of the audacious Pompidou peered out from the surrounding antiquity.

If she leaned a bit over the wrought iron railing, she spied the gothic, almost brutish, shoulders of Notre Dame to her left. The square towers, the phallic center spire thrusting upward toward Heaven. From her vantage point, she only caught the uppermost view of the cathedral's profile, not the graceful buttresses or the gorgeous Rose window; only man’s desire to wrestle stone, make something permanent and hard - masculine even in celebration of Our Lady. 

But what Molly loved most was the view to her right. Sacré Cœur. The _heart_ glowed from her throne atop the hill of Montmartre. Was there any doubt that the basilica was built as a secretly pagan ode to the female form? Molly rubbed her protruding belly, feeling a special kinship with the bulbous, pale landmark now.

She turned away from the window, a sudden pang of wistfulness fogging her view. She'd heard pregnant women speak of "babymoons', those pre-pregnancy trips couples took just before their world of two expanded to three. If ever a city welcomed babymoon-ers, Paris did - in technicolor. Her head told her to get back in the game. _"Exciting work ahead!"_ it shouted, _"endless hours of pathology patter!"_

Her heart ached for Sherlock. 

Molly wrinkled her nose and started unpacking. Her head had the upper hand in this debate. 

She'd stashed a vibrator in the sleeve of her flat iron. She'd appease her _heart_ after dinner.

 

Hours later, Molly emerged from the flat, freshly scrubbed and bare-shouldered in her little sundress with the big botanical print. She carried a lightweight cardi with her. _Even in August?_  she heard Sherlock say from somewhere between her ears. “Yes. Even in August,” she smiled aloud.

Molly wore her hair in a loose bun, not out of any nod to style. She'd grown impatient with her pregnancy thick-and-glossy strands. Even her elastics snapped under the stress of so much new growth. She wore no makeup except for a sweep of mascara and a deep red lipstick she’d purchased in hopes of managing a bit of ‘impossibly chic’ French aplomb despite having next to no English aplomb. Was there even such a thing as English aplomb? 

Yes. And she'd married the one man with vast reserves of that envious self-confidence.

_Lucky fucking woman, Molly Hooper._

Molly soaked up some of his poise by proxy tonight. She felt pretty and lush as she waddled down Boulevard Voltaire on her way to dinner.

The next three-and-a-half days belonged to her conference mates; long hours in sessions followed by a few hours dissecting the sessions over dinner. Tonight, she planned to dine alone, just her and baby, on _onglet de boeuf_ and a huge helping of _frites maison_  at her favorite bistrot. 

Sadly, no tartare or wine for her. Next time, though… with a certain gentleman sitting across from her, casually folding his long legs under the table each time a waiter navigated the cramped dining room.

She swung right onto Rue Paul Bert, loving the way steam from the sidewalk shimmied over her sandaled feet and naked legs. Ahead of her, the bistrot’s rust-coloured exterior peeked out from behind a row of tables set along the sidewalk for couples dining _à l’extérieur._

Her eyes drifted right, across from the tables, and landed on a pair of legs, stretched long and crossed at the ankles, clad in summer-weight wool. The rich charcoal grey fabric hid and highlighted muscular thighs. Above that, the same cloth fell over wiry shoulders and a tapered waist; his suit jacket left unbuttoned to reveal a remarkably crisp and bold lilac shirt. 

Molly slowed down to take in the view, despite her legs wanting to run to him, jump into his arms and wrap around him.

Baby Holmes nudged at her bladder, reminding her that she couldn't engage in such acrobatics now anyway. 

The lanky figure leaned against a parked car, fingers thrumming a lazy rhythm against the aluminum panel. Even without the bistrot’s outdoor lighting kissing his luminous skin and dancing over those dark curls, his profile was unmistakable; the long nose, the high cheekbones, the column of his neck. 

He turned his face toward her and a corner of his mouth kicked up, reeling her in.

And, oh my, he wore the most opaque sunglasses she’d ever seen - unnecessary in the dusky mauve of the Parisian twilight.

He looked beautiful. Graceful. 

Shameless.

She floated toward him, pulled by an invisible string. “How did you… When? I didn’t know…” Words failed her on the best of days. Coupled with pregnancy brain, they may well have been Sanskrit for all she could piece them together. She went up on tippy toes to kiss him. He straightened and stepped back from her. An unexpectedwelcome that made her heart dip. 

“Ms. Hooper, I presume?” He said in the tone she’d heard him unleash when establishing his unquestioned authority in rooms where, _legally,_ he wasn't the authority.

“What…"  _What was he up to?_ "I'm sorry?"

Sherlock presented her with a white card. The vellum felt expensive and warm in her fingers. Two sparse lines in a strong black typeface cut across the front:   

> **Liam Scott**
> 
> **For Hire**

On the back, scrawled in his unmistakable firm penmanship, he’d written:  

> ** _Molly Hooper-Holmes_ **
> 
> ** _Desiring of one night’s ‘company’ while away on business. Sans husband._ **

He'd collected dozens of aliases in his life. Molly knew them all, a professional hazard she'd managed while processing his routine blood tests (and some that skewed less than routine), administering his detoxes, prepping for Lazarus...  Even 'Sherlock Holmes' skirted the truth, the shortened, public version of his weighty birth name. 

But she'd never met one of his pseudonyms in person. Until tonight. 

Molly very much liked this Liam Scott.

She raised a brow. “Now that you mention it... I’m delighted to find you’re free, _Mr. Scott._ ”

“One makes oneself free when a paying customer materializes, Ms. Hooper. Shall we?” He placed his large palm possessively on the small of her back and guided her into the bistrot's tiny bar.

The heat from his hand seeped through the wisp of cotton covering her body. And branded her skin.

Molly’s escort ate very little. 

That didn’t stop her from treating herself to the full menu: entrée, plat, fromage, _and_ dessert. She ordered carpaccio de boeuf for him 

“I’d like to live vicariously through you Sher— I mean, _Liam_. And, I’m paying for your services… _all_ of your services," she giggled, "So… eat. And tell me exactly what you taste.” 

He dutifully nibbled on the tissue-paper-thin slices of raw beef and described the sensations to her; “The texture’s fine silk” and “I taste the grass melting on my tongue. Mmm..." The noise level in the raucous space didn't dampen Sherlock's obscene moans; no doubt her hired man was playing to his audience. " _Sooo_ luscious," he managed around a forkful. "And, mmm warmmm.” 

He sipped the Pouilly-Fumé she’d requested. “Tell me what it tastes like,” she said. He stared at her over the rim of his glass, an almost imperceptible crease denting his cheek. His lips ticked upward. She knew that gaze, the weight of hiseyes on her face, her shoulders. 

_ Lower. _

“Herbaceous. Woody. Like heather.” He rolled the wine around on his tongue, enjoying the golden liquid and her rapt attention. “Minerals, like the best bottled water. And matchsticks,” he smiled and drained another glass. “The _fumé._ ”

Molly knew nothing about wine beyond _Mmm…this is good!_ But her escort did. As he did with music, he knew the language of wine, how to describe its taste, feel, and provenance from aroma to terroir. If she couldn’t drink the stuff for a year, at least she could get a thrill out of watching someone else enjoyment of it.

He relished a chance to indulge his exhibitionist, baring his neck with each swallow, the muscles wringing just as much pleasure from the liquid as his taste buds. 

She didn’t know vintages. What Molly knew was the promise held in that smile; tight-lipped and indecent. The show-off given free rein.

Oh, this was going to be a fun evening; the fantasy she didn’t know she wanted all wrapped up in the babymoon she didn’t know she needed.

 

Sherlock crowded her in the small lift, standing so near as she pushed the button that Molly felt his heat through her thin lawn dress. The enclosed space, the fickle overhead light, the stuttering pulleys that hoisted the carriage to the six floor; all of those factors muddled her brain, had her feeling his thighs pressing into the backs of hers, his half-erect cock nudging at the seam of her bum.

A not altogether unpleasant sensation in the still air of the lift. 

Not imaginary. _Real._

Molly took a deep breath, exhaled and spun round to face him, intent on rubbing her swollen breasts against his chest, guiding his hands to her sore nipples. A cat in heat. 

He raised an innocent brow at her. _What...???_

Sherlock stood in the corner of the lift, far enough away that she couldn’t possibly have felt his body. And yet…

She leaned back in her own corner, adjusting her eyes to the light. Such a gorgeous specimen. Her fingers twitched to get him on her slab. Not to cut, of course. Just to… explore. Molly’s head swam, as though she’d downed the wine. How he managed to stay upright after so much of it, she didn’t know. He’d had the entire bottle while she got drunk on fizzy water and the sight of his shirt buttons straining to do their job.

Her own tipsy sobriety coloured the evening in smoky pastels; hazy but edged in recklessness. 

Pregnancy brain.

Randy body.

“So, when you say you’ve made yourself ‘free’ for a paying customer, a) how long do I have you for and, b) how ‘free’ are you, Mr. Scott,” she asked, swaying slightly in his heady breeze.

“First…,” he purred, “All night. And second…,” he paused as though waiting for her to find equilibrium before he knocked her off of it, “I’m at your disposal, Ms. Hooper —“

“— Mrs. Holmes,” she interrupted. "I’ve decided I’d like you to call me by my married name tonight.”

He held her gaze. “Very well. Mrs. Holmes, then. I’m at your disposal, free to be used.. and _abused_ as you see fit. ‘Give the lady what she wants’ istwentieth-centuryury motto that should make its way back into this century’s lexicon, wouldn’t you agree?”

She very much agreed. 

Molly took a sure-footed step toward him as the lift creaked to a stop. “Oh, Mr. Scott,” she breathed into the suprasternal notch at the base of his throat. Her fingertip tracked up the inside of his thigh, just wide of his groin, telegraphing her intent by way of his femoral artery. Sherlock's lips parted slightly; he'd received the message. “You should’ve eaten more at dinner. I own you tonight.”

 

“We’ll begin with my feet, _Liam_ ,” she said, kicking off her sandals and collapsing onto the sofa. 

Betrand had that kind of flat kitted with modern conveniences - a galley kitchen made for cooking, a bathroom made for lounging - and antiques; clean, masculine surfaces softened with feminine scrollwork and fabrics. 

“There’s an enamelware pitcher and bowl in the bath,” she continued. “Fill it up and bring it here. I want you to wash and massage my feet.”

“Of course,” he nodded. 

Minutes later, Sherlock emerged with the steaming basin and a flannel. He unbuttoned his jacket and knelt before her. “Such pretty feet, Mrs. Holmes.” He took her ankle in his hand and inspected the high arch with his thumb, pressing into the tightness as he caressed to the ball of her foot. 

Molly’s insides unfurled like a flag on the wind; tight creases and folds giving way to his cool air.

“Mmm…,” she sighed, closing her eyes, ready to spread her legs wide and beg him to continue his ministrations higher. Deeper.

He gave each toe a gentle tug, rolling it between his fingers as though they the most delicate of porcelain figurines. She felt the delicious _pop!_ of each joint and moaned louder. Then the warm flannel slithered between her toes, soft and wet and smelling of lavender. Over her arch. Around her heel. Cradling her anklebone. 

She arched and pointed her foot, his touch sparking the fuses buried in her scalp.

“Hmm,” he frowned, and spoke to the top of her foot. “Someone’s been neglected. We’ll have to rectify that…” 

Molly nearly jerked off the sofa when he sucked her big toe into his mouth. The plush, silky heat of his tongue worked circles around her skin and lathed the crease. Then he did the same with her remaining piggies, nipping the riotously sensitive, fleshy pad of each toe. His hands spidered up her calf but didn’t cross the DMZ of her kneecap, no matter how much she wiggled into him.

“Patience, Mrs. Holmes,” he whispered into her arch and kissed it, swirling his tongue to the ball and back. “We have all night and I intend to give you good value for your money.”

Sherlock moved to her other foot, lavishing it with the same care, paying close attention to her instep. She’d never thought of herself (or him!) as having a foot fetish. Now Molly wondered how she’d gone her entire adult life (not to mention nearly 8 months of pregnancy!) without a kiss to the anklebone or the press of lips to her arch. 

He sluiced fragrant water over her feet. Desire pooled down the center line of her body; a molten liquid that threatened to soak the crotch of her plain white pregnancy pants. Sherlock moved the basin to catch errant droplets as he squeezed the flannel over her lower legs. The _tink-and-plop_ of water hitting the basin disrupted the urban quiet of the darkened flat. Everything else, people, sirens, bicycle bells, drifted well below them. 

Molly’s head lolled to one side as she relaxed, his strong fingers massaging her calves. The bedroom lay beyond the main room. Beyond that, through the open window, the Tour Eiffel sparkled, its first show of the night. Molly lost so much of herself to his strong fingers that she almost believed she’d figured out the blinking sequence of the tower's random display.

Sherlock kissed her shins and sat back on his heels, hands to his knees. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that you have lovely skin, Mrs. Holmes. Smooth and lively. A Rodin come to life.” The side of his face farthest the windows was in wicked shadow - the side on which his mouth quirked up. The darkness and the low timbre of his voice gave him a dangerous air; ready for anything she could dream up.

Pregnancy had a tendency to produce vivid, extraordinary dreams…

Molly got to her feet, legs slightly shaky. Their positions put his face in line with her belly - where their child floated, happily oblivious to its parent's appetite for each other, a hunger that had produced the little tadpole to begin with. She placed a fingertip under his chin and tilted his face upward her. Molly's vision filtered through the lens of superiority, sharpening the details like the crack of a whip.

He looked lovely there on his knees, her eager submissive. Waiting for her orders.

_ Mine.  _

She ran her other hand through his silky strands, fingers skimming his forehead the burying in his curls from hairline to nape of neck. She pulled gently. Sherlock’s lids fluttered. Another message received.

“I’d like some company while I watch the lights.” She flicked her finger off the end of his nose and snapped at his ear, bringing him to heel behind her in the alcove of the bedroom window, she up on the window area's 'step', him on the floor behind her. This time, there was no mistaking the hard length at her bum, pressing her into the railing. She pushed back, rubbing him with her arse. Sherlock’s hands went to her hips and Molly circled his crotch, sighing into the firmness of his cock and taut thigh muscles. 

“You forget yourself, _Liam,_ ” she scolded. “This isn’t about _your_ pleasure. It’s about mine. If you get any pleasure out of this evening, so be it. But…” Molly ducked away from him, resting against the other side of the alcove. “…I’ve paid in full so the night belongs to me.” 

A low growl escaped his lips. She saw the outline of his bulge in the dark. Moonlight or streetlamp, it didn’t matter the source; the glow fondled him like a preternatural lover. If Molly wasn’t careful, _she’d_ be the one on her knees, begging him to fill her mouth.

“Of course,” he nodded once, voice and body under his complete control once again. And nearer the edge than she. 

Oh...this night. This man.

“What can I do to make Mrs. Holmes’s enjoyment of the show more memorable?”

Molly swallowed. If she asked him, Sherlock do it. If he did it, she’d fall well outside of her comfort zone. And Liam would catch her. Wasn’t that what male escorts were for?

“You…,” she stopped to find her way. “You should get a pillow. For…for your knees.”

Sherlock moved before her last words found breath. He dropped the pillow and his fine jacket at her feet, she on the pedestal, he beneath. He knelt down in front of her, in front of half the 10th arrondissement, and blinked, slow and rude. “Like so?” 

His fingers climbed under the hem of her dress. Molly arched her back toward his face in spite of her fluttering insides. He kissed her core through the cotton dress, through her pants. “Mmm… I can smell you, Mrs. Holmes.”

“What do I smell like, Mr. Scott?”

Sherlock laughed into her the curve of her belly. “Not like strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, if that’s what you’re hoping for.” 

Molly blushed. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for. She’d tasted herself, many times, on his lips but never had the words to describe her viscousness. He’d always been vocal about how much he liked her flavor; animal noises and the charming but less than insightful _"you taste so good."_ Tonight, though, she wanted him to define it, as he’d done with the carpaccio, the wine.

“Describe me to _me_ , Liam,” she whispered, grabbing his hair and sliding her palms down the side of his face, clasping his cheeks in her hands. 

“Hold your up dress for me, Mrs. Holmes.”

She gathered the fabric in her hands and went weak when he nudged his face under her swollen stomach. His nose rubbed at the front of her silky pants. Molly felt air swirl over the vee between her legs as he inhaled. 

“Your chemistry has changed since your husband knocked you up.” 

Molly felt him smile against her springy bush. The husband in question liked the new, thicker curls between her legs as much as her escort.

“Ripe and wild. Like a field after it rains.” He rubbed his nose deeper into her. “Not the stuff of perfumeries or toiletries. Real fields. Like in Sussex. Mud and grass, electricity and cow dung —“

Horrified, Molly pushed him away. “Wait! I smell like cow dung?!” 

Sherlock blinked up at her, his face soft and hurt, as though she'd just ripped him from his warm bed. He took her hands and planted a kiss in the center of each palm. “No. You smell real; all those things blended together. And here in this heat. You’re more musky. Pheromones crashing into each other instead of floating around aimlessly.” He wrapped her fingers around the back of his head and settled between her legs again. “And I cannot inhale you deep enough."

She laughed, the kind of low noise that devolved into a sigh. “I thought ‘strawberries and cream’ would've sounded better.” He palmed her bum under the cool microfiber and pulled her closer. Molly insides quivered for even more closeness. "Mmm... I like your words, Liam.”

He pulled her pants down over her thighs, the crotch sticking a bit to her damp core. “So beautiful,” he murmured into her. 

Molly moaned appreciatively and stepped out of the pants. She had a view of Parisian rooftops to her left, impossibly blue in the dark, and amber light from the windows of uppermost floors. 

And they had a view of her and her escort silhouetted in the dark. 

Sherlock kissed her pussy, featherlight and gentle, aware that pregnancy had made her so sensitive to touch. His hands skimmed up the backs of her thighs, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. He tapped her right leg. “Put your leg on my shoulder, Mrs. Holmes.”

He didn’t ask; he commanded. Molly did as she was told, hitching her skirt up over her expansive belly. He rewarded her for her boldness. his tongue flicking at her seam, long strokes lapping up her wetness and dipping between the folds. 

“Shhhhhhh…,” Molly lost his name on her lips, grasping at his hair to tether her to reality. But the night wouldn't settle. It vibrated on the edge of fantasy. She felt the breeze, hot and heavy, blow in from the canal. The scents of concrete and tobacco floated up in waves from the cafe below. Charcoal and spices drifted under the window from the Indian restaurant at the corner. 

She inhaled Sherlock’s posh soap - woodsmoke and sandalwood. His own scent, or was that traces of the beef, sharper now from his growing need, mingled with hers. She smelled the mud and electricity and the pheromones exploding just as he’d described.

His fingers flittered over the thin skin that stretched over her hip bones. She bucked into him, her body unable to absorb the ghost-like caress in any less violent a fashion.

Molly wanted to envelope him in her body, wrap her arms around his head, bend over him and kiss the nap of his neck. Pregnancy made that an impossibility. Her belly dictated her movements now. All she could do was lean back and let Sherlock… _Liam_ suck and lick and taste her.

He obliged, swirling her clit with the tip of his tongue, exhaling across her pinked skin. Molly’s inner muscles throbbed for something more, something elegant and long, quaking just at the knife-edge of orgasm.

That wouldn’t do. 

She owned him for the night. Molly intended to get her indecent fill of the charming Mr. Liam Scott.

“Stop!” Her voice exploded around the room. She steadied herself against his shoulders as he pulled back, his expression glazed. So beautiful…

“I… I… Take off your shoes,” she ordered, pointing to the bed. “Sit back on the pillows. I’ll be…” she kissed the hollow of his neck, the space that smelled of fine things - wool and musk and tea. “I'll be…right back, Liam.”

Molly caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, her face plump, cheeks ruddy, lids glossy and almost as translucent as Sherlock’s. She didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her - wanton, insatiable. But she loved her; loved the matureness reflected in the tiny creases at the corners of her mouth, the daring behind her eyes, set to simmer. She swiped a bold stroke of red lipstick across her lips and returned to the bedroom with her toiletries back in hand.

Sherlock leaned back against the headboard and pillows as though painted by Manet; dark and subversive. Human and feline. And she was going to eat him up.

Molly crawled onto the bed, not caring about how inelegant she looked in the company of such refinement. She tapped his knees, a silent order to open them. She backed into the space he provided and leaned against his chest. His left hand rested on her hip. Molly toyed with the fingers of his right, mapping knuckle and bone, fingernail and pad.

“Your hands feel a bit worn, Mr. Scott,” she cooed. “I’m surprised, given your, em, line of work.”

He responded with an amused gust of air across the top of her head.

“Are your husband’s hands more… posh, Mrs. Holmes?” 

“As a rule? No. Make no mistake, he loves posh things. Bar shampoo. Clothes. Dear Lord, he loves clothes. Dressing gowns, mainly,” she laughed, “And manicures…”

“Dressing gowns in the twenty-first century? Sounds like a pompous arse.”

Molly knew he meant his statement to be funny; Sherlock fishing for a complement as he did so often. She snapped at the bait but not with her head - searching in vain for the right words. 

She swallowed it with her heart.

“No…he’s…, “ her voice floated below the sounds of the city. “He’s like a firefly you know?” She didn’t turn round to look at him or wait for his acknowledgement. Her words weren’t making sense but she felt them and continued anyway. “You know when you capture them in a jar and watch them glow? You want to touch that magic, taste it. And then their lumesent little tails dim. You want to keep them but you know that if they stay in that jar, they’ll die…”

Molly exhaled all the longing she held for him in those early years, all the want. She tasted the pain of watching him leave Bart’s the morning of Lazarus, when he’d set the plan in motion and walked out that service entrance while John and his little band of players agonized over the corpse she’d prepared. She felt his navy blue eyes scanning her from tip to toe has he turned back one last time then blew through the doors, leaving London, John, her, for two years.

She breathed through the low boil of acid in her throat; jealous of the woman with no face on the slab, the bridesmaid who shared his bed long before Molly ever left her own DNA there.

And she swallowed back the anger, the tough love and aching loneliness of watching him detox. Multiple times.

“Well… You open the lid and let them go, watch them sore higher and float just out of reach,” she shrugged. “He’s like that. Madding because you’re never able to harness that light. Beautiful because… because you go about living all your summers, free and happy without the fireflies… then they just appear out of nowhere and you wonder how anything could make your life any better.”

She didn’t feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back any longer, didn’t hear him breathing. Molly turned to him, his face still as though he’d been stunned with the paddles. 300 volts and not enough as he died once on the table. “Or…,” she hedged, “You squash the things against your skin, like I did one summer, smearing the bioluminescent enzyme like some sort of sinister face paint.”

Nothing. He neither spoke nor blinked.

_“Sherlock…”_ She’d witnessed his mind palace trips. And trips of a different sort. His statuesque silence always worried her.

His hands cupped her belly, their child, the pressure reassuring against her skin. 

“Molly,” his voice raspy as he spoke and not at all as the playful Liam. “Your husband will spend the rest of his life making up to you. And he’ll fall woefully short of the mark in the end.” Sherlock stared into her with those same navy blue eyes she’d seen that Lazarus morning at Bart’s. The weight of them as comforting as his hands on her body. “But he’ll endeavor to, regardless.”

They stayed like that for minutes. For hours. She didn’t know. A smile, broad and genuine lit up his face in the dark - the physical dimness of the bedroom and the frightening, black chasm of parenthood they both stood near the edge of.

She returned his grin with one of her own and handed him the flat-paddled wooden brush. “Now,” she said and turned back round to settle between his legs, “if Liam would be so kind as to brush my hair for me. 100 strokes, please.”

"With pleasure," he breathed. 

The shell of Molly's ear burned with his promise.

#### TO BE CONTINUED...

*****

In addition to the lovely striptease story by **[OhAine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10947717)** , the inspiration for Molly's shameless escort Liam Scott, Hire For Your Pleasure, is really just based on this [**one image**](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/21/article-2397072-1B6590D4000005DC-612_634x934.jpg). It's an oldie but  a very, very goodie. You're welcome. 

I mean, srsly. WTAF with this man?!?! God's gift to both sexes. 


End file.
